An initial 4A N2...?

[Jonathon Green]

> Are 'cool' 'pot' 'grass' slang?  Though they may be "associated with a
> particular social grouping," they aren't used only by those groups.  These
> terms are widely used but aren't exactly "standard."  What about a term
like
> 'threads' for clothing?  Examples of why it's so hard to define 'slang'.
>
> DMLance
>

Drug Slang/ Drug Jargon

If one defines jargon (the occupational/group variety rather than the
obfuscational sort, which I don't think has been brought into the discussion
so far) as a language used by a specific 'occupational' group, then _all_
drug terminology could be labelled jargon. And as such should be
disqualified from the slang lexica. But the reality is that certain terms -
'cool' (used of course in many areas other than drugs),  'pot' and 'grass'
are good examples - have long since crossed over into mainstream congnisance
and indeed use. There are many others, 'crack' or 'ecstasy' (MDMA) being
obvious contenders. So I would place them among slang. There is also,
surely, an argument to suggest that simply through the numbers of speakers -
the drug-using 'community' must run into its tens of millions in
English-speaking countries alone - that the sheer volume of use of these
words takes them out of the relatively limited world of jargon and into the
wider one of slang. One suggestion: perhaps the names of drugs tend to be
slang; the equipment and technique of administration remains jargon. Thus I
would define 'smack' for heroin as slang, but 'to shoot gravy': for a
narcotics addict to reinject the blood that has been drawn into the syringe
and there mixed with the heroin solution, as jargon. Though even here the
line is permeable: 'joint', a marijuana or hashish cigarette is well known
and widely used enough to be slang, even though it falls into the area of
'equipment'. As I say, it is but a suggestion - and the line is in the end
probably impossible to draw.

Jonathon Green